E-mail a friendLee A. Daniels
airdate July 4, 2008
Before joining the NAACP Legal Defense Fund as communications director, Lee Daniels was publications director for the National Urban League, where he edited The State of Black America and Opportunity Journal. The Boston native has also reported for The Washington Post and The New York Times. He's a former Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics and a Teaching Fellow at Harvard's Expository Writing Program. Daniels issues a challenge to Black America in his new book, Last Chance.
Author discusses whether African American leadership will be marginalized by the political ascension of Sen. Obama. (1:39)
Full Interview. (12:27)
Lee A. Daniels
Tavis: Lee Daniels is the former editor of the National Urban League's annual journal, "The State of Black America," who now serves as Director of Communications at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He's also the author of the new book, "Last Chance: The Political Threat to Black America." He joins us tonight from New York. Lee, nice to have you on the program.
Lee Daniels: Nice to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: Let me start with the obvious question. Last chance for what or last chance at what?
Daniels: Last chance for Black America to martial its forces cogently so that it can address the problems facing it, to significantly reduce those problems or else. The "or else" is for Black America as we have known it since the end of the Civil War to break up essentially into atomized groups that have very little to do with one another.
Tavis: The factors, the environment, the reasons for this being the last chance are?
Daniels: The reasons being that the problems are so severe in and of themselves, that is, the internal problems Black America faces, and there are a series of external problems which exacerbate those problems, that is, which makes the problems worse and make them worse much more quickly. So there's very little time left to address these problems in any serious fashion.
Tavis: Give me some particulars, some specifics.
Daniels: For example, the problems of school under-performance, that is, the performance of significant numbers of Black school children. Now this has always been a problem. It's, of course, a problem for many American white children as well, but it significantly hurts Blacks more.
But the reason the problem is so severe and is growing more severe is that force from the external world called globalization, which means that the education of a nation's workforce is much more important now. And for those don't have education, an education that prepares them to work in today's society, they are not going to be simply pushed to the margins of the society, but they're gonna be pushed off the cliff.
Tavis: I wonder whether or not - and I first make the assumption that there are many people in Black America who agree with you. I think there are a lot of folk who agree that we're at a critical juncture, at a critical period in Black America right about now, whether or not it's the last chance.
We could debate that, but there are a lot of folk who agree with you - I know I certainly do - that we're at a critical juncture. I wonder whether or not you think the masses of Black people understand that and, even if they did, what would that mean?
Daniels: Well, I think the masses of Black people have long understood it. I don't think they have any doubt about the seriousness of the situation of Black people as a whole and that's, to me, been proved by these eruptions, one can call it, of mass concerns. For example, the Jena 6 case which was an eruption of mass concern. The question is the internal ability of Black America to organize on a national scale to address these problems.
Tavis: I want to move here gingerly and gently so as not to offend people, but let me just - what the heck. Maybe I'll just put it out there anyway. There are a lot of folk - and you know this. Maybe our white brothers and sisters watching right now don't know this, but a whole lot of talk inside of Black America about whether or not Barack Obama's ascension has effectively marginalized Black leadership as we know it.
That is to say that white America will now look to Mr. Obama as the presumptive spokesperson, as the titular head not just of the DNC, but of Black America as well and that those persons longstanding, with all due respect to Mr. Obama, who have made the case for Black redress and Black retribution and Black equity and Black fairness will now be marginalized. I know you've heard that. What do you make of that notion?
Daniels: Well, that's a longstanding dynamic in American society, as you know. It's going to be proved false rather quickly as it already has been in a sense, but if Obama becomes president, President Obama will be president of all the American people. He will not be president of Black America and he will not be a spokesman in the sense that we ordinarily mean it.
He will not be a spokesman for Black America. He will be a spokesman for the American people. What else can he be? So that will not marginalize Black leadership or Black leaders or people working to enhance the resources that Black America has. People may perceive it that way, but the reality will be something far different than that.
Tavis: The flip side of that argument is that there will be a certain segment of our society, let's just put it that way. The flip side of the argument is, Lee, there's a certain segment of our society who is then going to turn to Black America in some very bold ways, others in some rather subtle ways. When I say bold ways, Pat Buchanan comes to mind with that memo for Whitey that we all saw distributed on the internet.
There are gonna be some white folk that are gonna look to Black folk and say, "We don't want to hear it. Go sit down and shut up somewhere. Do not talk to me about racism or discrimination anymore. You've got Oprah; you've got Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan. You've got Barack Obama as president. There are scores of Black folk who have made it. You got Negroes running Fortune 100 companies. I don't want to hear this racism, discrimination argument anymore. If a Negro can be president, shut up."
Daniels: Well, there have always been people - indeed, we lived in this country, that is, Black people lived in this country for most of their existence with people saying, "We don't want to hear it." There have always been people who have tried to solve, as it were, the racial dilemma by simply saying, "It's over."
We have the example of this campaign itself to show conclusively that simply saying you don't want to hear it is not going to mean that you're not going to hear it. A President Obama is going to be president of the American people. He is not going to be the spokesman for Black America.
There are going to be spokesmen and women for Black American who will continue to press the issues because they have to continue to press the issues because the situation of Black people demands it. It demands it not only for Black people, it demands it for white people and other Americans. These are the critical issues that America faces. One can see that in the Obama campaign itself.
Tavis: One could also argue, as I've heard argued any number of times - I know you've heard this as well. Let's just put it out there. When these Black leaders step up to continue to do what they have done, let's be honest about it. A whole lot of them, we ain't gonna call no names, but you know who I'm talking about, a whole lot of them have been rather silent and rather MIA during this Obama campaign because they've been pushed to the sidelines and told not to rock the boat.
Don't start talking now about the issues in Black America. We got to make sure that Barack Obama gets elected. So one could make the argument, if you wanted to be serious about it, that some of these Black leaders - respectfully, Lee, we disagree on this point - have already been marginalized to some degree.
Furthermore, if Mr. Obama gets elected, what say you then about the fact that, when they continue to raise these issues which might put him, the President Obama, in between a rock and a hard place, it makes it difficult for him because, you're right, he's got to be president for all of America.
But if he starts responding to and catering and trying to deal with these Black leaders trying to get in the White House every other week about this issue or that issue, now he becomes too Black in the White House and he can't get re-elected.
Daniels: Well, politics is the name of the game and it's the job of the President of the United States to live between a rock and a hard place on all sorts of issues.
Tavis: (Laughter) indeed.
Daniels: So for a President Obama to have to deal with that kind of circumstance from Black America is part of the game. I'm sure he's aware of that. I'm sure many people in Black America are aware of that. That's not going to stop the issues from being pressed, whether they be by leaders whose names we are familiar with today or new leaders who come to the fore.
We have seen indeed in the very rise of Barack Obama, in the very rise of Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, we have seen the harbingers of I think a new era in both Black politics per se, that is, people seeking elective office, and people rising to address the issues at local and state levels.
Tavis: Now the flip side of the questions I've been asking for the last few minutes, to be fair and equitable about this, the flip side of those arguments that I've been raising, of course, just in terms of being devil's advocate, to dig more into your text, the flip side of that argument is this.
That Obama's ascension, if in fact he is elected, releases progressive possibilities that makes it easier for us then - these progressive possibilities, that is - makes it easier for us to then not have to cast this as the last chance, but really gives us a playing field, some fertile territory, to do something about these problems that plague Black America.
Daniels: That's absolutely right. And the task of all of us, not simply those who would call themselves Black leaders, but the task of all of us is to play smart politics. Politics is the name of the game, as I've said before, and politics is the art of navigating what is possible. Politics is the art of compromise. That's what we're going to have to do.
Tavis: There are those - let me rephrase that. Not there are those. There's one particular guy named Lee A. Daniels who argues in this new book, "Last Chance," that even if Obama is elected, these organizations, the NAACP, the Urban League, run the list, Rainbow Push, National Action Network, I could do this all day, but these Black-based, Black-themed organizations are going to have to step their game up. You come down pretty hard on some of these organizations longstanding who have, shall we say, lost their way?
Daniels: They've lost their vigor. They've suffered from an institutional hardening of the arteries. They don't have a vision that they can put forth with any energy. Now there are all sorts of reasons for that. One of the reasons is that, over the past three decades, there's been a tremendous growth of organizations within Black America that have been dedicated to specific functions that used to be handled by the NAACP and the Urban League.
Whether you look at business creation or even scholarships for youth, a lot of these activities which we now associate with other Black organizations which take those activities exclusively used to be handled by the NAACP or the Urban League. In that situation, that's a positive development. These organizations, the NAACP, the Urban League, have to find new reasons for being. I have to say, at the national level, they've not found new reasons for being. They've found new reasons for being with their local chapters and local affiliates, but at the national levels, they've been wandering.
I do say in my book that this is not simply a failing of Black America. If one looks across the color line at white America, we can look at all sorts of examples of institutional leadership. There's been a crisis of leadership in the political realm, in the corporate realm and the nonprofit realm in America, period, for the last two and a half decades.
Tavis: I got to get to Eric Liu here to talk about patriotism on this Friday, July 4 show. But let me ask you right quick before I let you go whether or not you are, all said and done, hopeful about the future of Black America?
Daniels: I'm more hopeful than I was precisely because of how the Obama candidacy worked out. I know that's a long complex explanation (laughter), but I am far more hopeful than I was when I started the book.
Tavis: All right. The new book by Lee A. Daniels is called "Last Chance: The Political Threat to Black America." Lee Daniels, nice to have you on. All the best to you.
Daniels: Thank you.
Back to July 4, 2008